a little comparison

Some people I know of: "IT'S MARDI GRAS!!!! TIME TO GO TO NEW ORLEANS AND GET STINKING DRUNK AND CELEBRATE!!!!!!"

Me: "Oh. It's Fat Tuesday. Shame there's nowhere near here I can get a real paczki. Well, I have frozen blueberries, I COULD make pancakes tonight." (And yes, that's being ever-so-slightly naughty for me: having a mostly-carbohydrate dinner without the requisite servings of vegetables (because who eats a salad alongside of pancakes? Not even me.)

I don't generally do the "give stuff up for Lent" thing (though this year I may work harder on not getting angry at "anonymous" people - like the dude in the grocery store who blocks the lane while waiting for a spot to open up), but yeah, having pancakes for dinner is a tiny bit of a celebration for me.


I knew people when I was in grad school - in Illinois - who drove the whole way down to New Orleans on Sunday afternoon before Fat Tuesday, skipped classes Monday and Tuesday, sometimes took Wednesday as a "recovery" day or sometimes had a designated driver* to drive them back.....mostly undergrads, actually, most of the grad students were too busy to do more than grunt in reaction to people saying it was Mardi Gras.

(*And wow, the saddest time ever to be a designated driver - you have to put up with all that noise and chaos. I'd HATE it. Some time, I do want to go to one of the more "family oriented" Mardi Gras celebrations some of the smaller cities do, where it's more "go watch a parade and have people throw candy to you, and little kids are welcome, and let's eat some traditional foods" but the true "Carneval" like in New Orleans would feel like a descent into Hell for me - too many people, too much noise, too much sensory stimulation all at once)

They are doing an Ash Wednesday service at church and I will most likely go. (And we're going to do a Tenebraes service on Maundy Thursday.... I always find those meaningful.)